Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

from Mrs. Cockrell's Class.

Wishing you all the best in 2012!

Jan Brett

This week, along with our Text Talk book, The Mitten, we are doing an author study on Jan Brett!

Please check out her awesome website for fun activities, videos, and more:

Jan Brett Website

Plump and Perky Turkey activities!

Boy, I wish I had found this last week, but better late than never, I suppose!

The publisher of A Plump and Perky Turkey has some games and activities over at their website.  Check it out HERE.

And below, click to listen to the story on YouTube!

Our Buddy Class!

We finally got to meet our Buddy Class a couple of weeks ago!

This year we will be buddying up with Mrs. Neuman's Kindergarten class!

On our first visit we talked about owls, which our Kinder buddies had been learning about.  Of course our 2A kiddos knew some about owls already, and we also knew lots about bats, which have some things in common with owls.

Then we made some paper bag owls (some of us just helped our Kinder buddies make their owls, and some of us decided to make our own).  I was so proud to see what great mentors our students were for the younger students.  They really did an awesome job and seemed to enjoy helping out!

We had a great time meeting our buddy class and will be visiting them again soon!  (First I was sick, and then Mrs. Neuman was sick!)

We look forward to getting to know our new buddies and helping them with their reading throughout this year.

"Buddy Class 1st Visit"

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Batty over Bats

Here are the awesome Bat "Lap Books" we made while we were studying the flying mammal!

"Bat Books 2011"

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Homemade Applesauce

During our unit on apples (Johnny Appleseed and Apples to Oregon text talk), we made our own homemade applesauce in class!

It was so much fun, and it was also super simple (which is good since Mrs. Cockrell is challenged in the area of culinary arts)!

Just peel and slice about 10-15 apples (lots of Granny Smiths to make it sweeter), and add them to a crock pot.  Then add the other ingredients:

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Cook on high for 3 hours or low for 6 hours.  You'll know when it's ready--nice and soft, and yummy smelling!  :D

Here are a few pictures of our fun:

"Applesauce 2011"

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Listen to Reading Links

Students, you may choose from the following websites during your Listen to Reading Daily:

Tumblebooks
Log-in information on computer.

StoryLine

Starfall Fiction and Non-fiction

Starfall Folk Tales

Starfall Comics

Nat Geo Kids

Mighty Books

BookPop

StoryPop

Storytime for Me

Wonderful Work!

Here are few examples of students who worked very hard to do their very best work on an assignment:

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Way to go, guys!  Keep up the good work.  Whose wonderful work will be recognized next??  :)

Force and Motion: Spinning Tops

We had a great time in science studying force and motion.  This was the day we created our own tops using plastic shafts and discs and designed decorations to watch as they were spinning!

Kizoa slideshow: Spinning Tops - Slideshow

Word Work: Spelling Sorts

Our district has been using the spelling program Words Their Way for quite a while now.  There are many benefits to the program, including the fact that students' spelling lists are individualized to fit their particular needs.  This was our first Spelling sort of the year, where we began by decorating our Spelling journal!

Here are a few pictures for your viewing pleasure...  :)

Sliding Down the Alphabet

As many of you may know, we recently started our new handwriting program, called Handwriting Without Tears.  It is a wonderful program, and I am very happy with it.  I only wish these kiddos could have started it in Kindergarten!  One day we sang this song along with our lesson about the letters at the end of the alphabet, which all have diagonal lines when writing them!  Funny the things you never notice.

Here is the music video for Sliding Down the Alphabet:

Q & A with author Deborah Hopkinson

Deborah Hopkinson, author of Apples to Oregon, was so kind to answer some questions our 2nd grade students thought of for her.  Thank you, Mrs. Kubinsky, for contacting Ms. Hopkinson and sending her our questions!

Here are our questions and Ms. Hopkinson's answers:

How long did it take you to write the book Apples to Oregon?

 

It took about a whole school year, from the start until the end.

 

Have you ever grown an apple tree?  If so is that where you first got the idea to write Apples to Oregon? 

 

Well, actually we did have a couple of small apple trees in Walla Walla, Washington where I was living when I wrote Apples to Oregon.  Can you find another mention of Walla Walla in the book?

 

Where do you get the information for your books?

I got the information by doing research. I found an article about the real Luelling family and the rest I made up!

 

What is it like to be an author?

It is fun but hard work to write books, and lots of fun to visit schools and talk to kids.  I also have a day job at a college, raising money for scholarships so that kids can go to college.

 

What is your favorite book you’ve written?

I think that Apples to Oregon IS my favorite book!

 

Which book has been the most popular book?

The most popular book has been Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt. Maybe you can find that and read it too.

 

Are you writing a new book?

I have three books coming out in 2012:  A Boy Called Dickens, Titanic: Voices from the Disaster, and Annie and Helen.

 

If you are working on a new book, what would it be about?

In addition to my three new books, I am writing another new one.  It is called A Trail of Coffins and it is a story about a boy who lives in London during a terrible epidemic.

I also just finished a book called, A Letter to My Teacher.

 

Did you like to write stories when you were in 2^nd grade?

I think you all are probably ahead of me.  I didn't start writing until I was in 4th grade. 

  

Do you have any advice for us as young writers?

 Keep writing and reading!

 

Have a great year!

 

All best,

 

Deborah Hopkinson

Virtual Field Trip: All About Bats

Yesterday 2nd grade took a VIRTUAL Field Trip to learn even more about BATS!  Bats are such interesting creatures (ding ding ding, vocabulary word!), and the students really enjoy studying them.

The field trip was awesome, and the students really seemed to be engaged and interested!  The links we visited had SO much fun stuff, that we didn't get the chance to do ALL of it, so I wanted to include it on our blog so that your child can take a closer look at everything.

Here is the link to the Virtual Field Trip.  I hope you will enjoy it as much as we did!


Virtual Field Trip: Batty for Bats

Thank you to Ms. Dowdy (Technology Toni) for creating this awesome Virtual Field Trip for us!

Fall Poetry Celebration information

Check out our new Voki for some reminders for our upcoming Poetry Celebration on October 31st.

The Biggest Pumpkin Ever: Vocabulary Voki

Thanks to Mrs. Kubinsky for creating our vocabulary Voki so we can practice our words at home!

Our Doubles Rap Performance

Oh my goodness, did we LOVE practicing our Doubles Raps today!  The students had a blast singing and dancing, and if the song gets stuck in their heads as much as it does mine, they will have those facts memorized in no time!

I think you will definitely enjoy watching their awesome performance.  Click on the link below to view the video (the video is only accessible to those who have this link).

2A Doubles Rap
SO much fun!

Doubles Rap!

This week in Investigations Math, we are studying all about doubles.  We read "One Potato, Two Potato," a book about a MAGIC POT that doubles any object that goes into it!

Please take a few minutes to watch the Doubles Rap videos below.  Tomorrow we will be learning motions (dance moves-haha) to go along with the rap!

Book Trailers

Yesterday during Daily 5, we learned about what it means to pick "Good Fit" books to read during our "Read to Self" time.  (More on that later.)  :)

One of the questions we ask ourselves when selecting Good Fit books is: "Do I find it interesting; do I want to read it?"

Well, when trying to decide if I am interested in seeing a movie, I watch the movie trailer and ask myself if I want to see it.  Now there are BOOK TRAILERS! 

Below are some Book Trailers that students may view to decide if the book is interesting to them.













I hope you enjoyed these Book Trailers and found one that you might enjoy reading.  I will make this a regular blog update and will continue to add new Book Trailers to check out!

Keep reading!

Longhorns of the Week

We have had two students recognized as Longhorn of the Week so far this year.  In addition to the ribbon given to each student, I wanted to come up with something more to recognize them.  I found a cute little sign on the internet and thought it would be perfect.

Here are 2A's first two "Longhorns of the Week:"

The Longhorns are announced on our morning announcements, and then later I fill in the sentence on the You Rock sign, and the student gets to keep the frame on his/her desk all day long.  They seemed to get a kick out of it.  :)

Thanks to Sweet Blessings Blog, who had this cute printable (and MANY others I have printed as well)!

Force and Motion: Balance Investigation

We have been studying balance in our unit on force and motion in science, and this is always one of the big hits, as far as experiments go.  :)  The students had a blast trying to find ways to balance a pencil on its point, and they did GREAT!

Things we learned:
-You must find a stable position in order for something to balance.
-The counterweights must be placed BELOW the point that you are trying to balance.
-If the counterweights are ABOVE the point, the object will be too top-heavy and topple over.

It was so fun watching the kids figure out how to make the pencil balance and how THRILLED they were when they got it!

Hope you enjoy our pictures of our "Balancing Pencils" investigation.

Human Circle Maps!

We LOVE Thinking Maps at our school.  I am one of the biggest supporters of using Thinking Maps to organize the students' thought process; they are truly a great tool.

Circle Maps are used to "define," so in class, we created "Human Circle Maps" to define ourselves!  So much fun.  The kids got a big kick out of sticking their faces into the hole in the middle, lol!

Hope you enjoy our photos of our human Circle Maps!

Table 3

Table 2

Table 1

Individual Photos (in no particular order, & names edited out, hehe):

YAY 2A!